


By Moonlight

by ChromaticNinja



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Confessions, F/M, Feels, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-14
Updated: 2017-01-14
Packaged: 2018-09-17 10:14:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9319232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChromaticNinja/pseuds/ChromaticNinja
Summary: A moonlit moment where two partners can just talk about their feelings, which maybe go deeper than either of them admit. Based on my own Sole Survivor character, Traycie Marco. Just a snippet in time in a nuclear wasteland.





	

Sanctuary.

Traycie stood on what had once been her front porch, in what now seemed like another life. After she’d returned here with Preston and his charges, she’d cobbled what little was left of her house into a private shelter. Walls had been erected again, a few pieces of furniture moved back into their proper spot or replaced completely. A few rooms behind her, Shaun’s crib had somehow made it through over 200 years of hell relatively untouched. She wondered if maybe Codsworth had kept it in such nice shape, as if preparing for his family’s eventual return. She sighed in a deep, world-weary way that expelled a pain that was rooted all the way in her bones.

Shaun was out there, somewhere.

Whatever it was the Institute wanted him for, it seemed like they wanted him alive. Though for what nefarious purpose, she could only imagine. In moments like this, the fact that he was probably still being cared for by someone was the only thing that kept her from going crazy with grief.

She’d come back here to talk to Preston about the state of some of the settlements under the Minutemen’s watch, tie up some loose ends, rest, and gather some supplies. Now she was staring out at the dusty ruin of a suburb street. It glowed blue against the dark debris and dry vegetation around it, splashed in moonlight. She hadn't been sleeping well, but she had been sleeping more regularly lately. She sighed again. She’d had to make peace with the fact that her body could only take so much. Rescuing Shaun was a hopeless task if she was already half dead from exhaustion.

In the midst of her contemplation, she felt someone move behind her. Wordlessly, she slid aside to make room on the porch next to her and Nick Valentine stepped in obligingly to occupy the space she’d made. They said nothing for a long moment. Nick had taken his coat off and he draped it over the rail of the porch before resting his left arm there. His right hand held a cigarette, which he took slow drags from during their mutual and comfortable silence, holding an inhale while apparently lost in thought, then releasing it slowly into the night air in a smoggy cloud. His tie was loosened and sleeves rolled up. It looked like he’d been helping with some of Sturges’ heavy lifting around town. She suddenly found herself staring at his neck where his collar had been loosened and forced herself to looked away, glad that the darkness concealed her blush.

“Seems like looking at an alien planet, sometimes,” the detective mused. “But some nights, you’d almost swear it looks like a decent place to live in.”

“We’re making it decent place to live in,” Traycie replied slowly. Her voice was low and distant, but the conviction of her words was no less sincere.

“I think I should be thanking you.” Nick folded his arms on the wooden rail and tapped away the ashes on his cigarette before glancing at her. His features were hard to see in this light, though the light of his amber optics struck her with an intensity that felt like a blow to the chest. “Working case to case in Diamond City… well, it’s a good gig. I was helping people. But traveling with you? Hard not to feel like I’m actually moving and shaking things in the world more than ever. More than I could on my own, at least.”

“I couldn’t exactly do it without you, Nick,” Traycie assured him, almost teasing, as if she were discussing something as casual as moving a piece of furniture. She leaned on the rail and shifted the weight of her hips casually. Her shoulder pitched against his in a gentle nudge. “Look at you and me, changing the world. It feels good to know it’s actually making a difference.”

“Gives an old bot like me hope to think this cruddy, hard-luck world could actually shape up to be a better place.” Eyes falling to his right hand–thin and robotic–as he fiddled with the weakly smoking cigarette, he shrugged in a way that suggested the closest thing he could give to a deep sigh, then looked at her again with steady intent. “Before you came along, I was one of the few people out there who remembered what the world was like before the war. It’s hazy, but my memories… er, Nick’s memories… Well. I can still picture all of this the way it was before, sometimes. Buildings in one piece. Shiny cars in the streets, people without guns in their hands and nasty looks in their eyes. Well, not as often, anyhow. Funny what you get used to. I… always kinda wonder if you’ve gotten used to it already, or if you can still can’t wrap your head around what happened to this world while you were in cold storage.”

Traycie scoffed gently, watching Dogmeat sniff around in the bushes across the street. This subject was something Nick usually danced around addressing directly. He and his former identity were still a sore spot, and she was happy to give him the space to address it on his own terms. In a way, she felt a grim sense of camaraderie over the fact that she wasn’t the only one who had been given a rude awakening in a world that was no longer her own, though she wouldn't wish that fate on anyone. “I guess I’ve gone numb to some of it. I mean, I have to. I’d be breaking down every five minutes, otherwise. But sometimes… sometimes when we pass somewhere I’ve been before… somewhere I remember from before, and the memories rush back… I guess it all hits me at once. I see the shapes of my old life in the wreckage of this new one. It’s hard not to feel haunted.” She looked back to him, suppressing a shudder of grief. “I can’t afford to let ghosts get the better of me, though. If I have to start a new life, I’m glad I have people like you in it.”

Her words seemed to put the synth in deep thought. He looked down at the ground at the base of the porch. Then he took a final drag from his cigarette before flicking the butt away into the rubble beneath them. “New life… yeah. I know what you mean.” He glanced up at the sky searchingly, then to her again. “Well, feeling’s mutual, doll. Not a day goes by I’m not grateful for you prying me out of Vault 114 and Skinny Malone’s meaty paws, you know. I wouldn’t have had this opportunity, otherwise. Hell, I’da probably landed in a garbage heap somewhere. Again.”

A smile twitched on Traycie’s lips, though it fell nervously as her heart thumped hard enough to make a lump in her throat. There were so many things she wanted to say to her friend… her companion and partner. She reached a hand to cover his, robotic and skeletal thin, but slightly warm. Alive. Right away, his fingers curled closed gently around hers. She felt a flush fly up through her face and her lips parted, suddenly acutely sensitive to her outright need to kiss him. Her eyes fluttered, unable to meet his. When she did manage to look at him, he was looking out at the road again. She stared at the profile of his face, near black against the dark blue of the moonlit town. He caught her looking and she squeezed her grip in his reflexively. She suddenly felt foolish. It wasn’t like she was some teenager, going all weak-kneed and doe-eyed over some guy, no matter how much that guy might cause her chest to flutter like a hummingbird’s wings. “Nick,” she started, voice distant.

“Yeah?”

“Will we still be a team? Even after all of this is over… once we find Shaun. Even if we somehow take the Institute down. After everything.”

“Well, I’ll still need a partner. There’s always gonna be something,” Nick remarked dourly, almost annoyed, though in a way that was clearly not directed at her.

“Yeah, true,” Traycie said with a gentle and nervous laugh. “But no matter what happens… I want you to stay with me, Nick.”

Exactly what she was implying finally seemed to strike him. He caught her eyes and searched them. It never ceased to amaze her how… expressive he was. The look in those haunting yellow eyes was lost. Startled, even. It captivated her and sunk a knife of regret into her chest at the same time.

“But if you don’t want to… I get that, too,” she amended, suddenly feeling like she had overstepped their friendship; ruined everything.

“Out of everyone in this god-forsaken, radioactive crater of a world, you really want a synth to be the one you go with for the long haul?” There was a touch of amusement in his baritone Boston drawl, though there was a note of disbelief as well. Something innocent and hopeful.

“Not just a synth, Nick. You. I’m not making a business proposition. I’m telling you… I want you.” Three more words were practically on her lips; screaming in her brain, bursting in her heart, but she couldn’t bring herself to say those ones yet. Her mouth drew together in a tight line as the embarrassment and tension from her confession burned a hole in her chest.

The light in the detective’s optics seemed to shift in realization. It was as if some barrier within himself suddenly crumbled, and in that instant he moved closer to her and pulled her into his arms. Traycie nearly stumbled backward as his face met her face; her lips met his lips. She went liquid in his embrace until her back arched back in a gentle dip. If she could have seen outside herself, it would have looked like a scene from an old pre-war movie: the detective’s arms around the dame, her arms clinging to his shoulders as he bent her for a kiss. But she wasn’t thinking about that. She was focused on pressing her lips against his desperately–possessively–hers trembling and soft against his: strange, pliable and synthetic, but not strange to her. There was an intent behind them that made her heart do cartwheels in her chest. So long she had fantasized about this and held out a reluctant hope that he might fantasize about it, too. Now she was wrapped in his arms, their lips linked in a caress that was achingly sweet. She felt the passion she so adored in him surging to the surface, and it made her feel weak and empowered all at once to think that, in this moment, that passion was all for her.

He eased away from her reluctantly, pulling her upright again. Optics that had fallen shut now opened again. Their faces were so close that her vision was filled with the warm gold glow of his gaze. There was something sheepish in his expression, though he was smiling, and so was she.

“No way I’m leaving you behind. Not until the whole world blows up again. Gotta say…” His voice dropped low, almost embarrassed. “I wouldn’t have even dared to think you’d go for an old synth who crawled out of a garbage heap. Glad to be wrong, though.”

“Yeah, well,” Traycie kept her arms around him, moving her fingers to lace together behind his neck and letting a giddy smirk spread across her face. “I guess I have a thing for antiques.”

**Author's Note:**

> I may post more of these, if anyone is interested! I have a backlog of interactions between these two, some saucier than others. Could make it part of a series, if I work up the spoons to revise everything. Let me know what you think!
> 
> -Chromie


End file.
